Ah Britain. Where high-ranking MPs secretly meet with Hamas but publicly demand the arrest of British-Israeli dual citizens. Where anti-Semitism is so much a part of the air that - just like in the rest of Europe - these kinds of outbursts are more and more routine:

A high-ranking diplomat at the Foreign Office has been arrested after allegations that he launched a foul-mouthed anti-Semitic tirade. Middle East expert Rowan Laxton, 47, was watching TV reports of the Israeli attack on Gaza as he used an exercise bike in a gym. Stunned staff and gym members allegedly heard him shout: 'Fucking Israelis, fucking Jews'. It is alleged he also said Israeli soldiers should be 'wiped off the face of the earth'. His rant reportedly continued even after he was approached by other gym users. After a complaint was made to police, Mr Laxton was arrested for inciting religious hatred... Mr Laxton, who is still working normally, is head of the South Asia Group at the Foreign Office, on a salary of around £70,000. He is responsible for all the UK's diplomacy in that area and for briefing Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who is Jewish. Mr Laxton has worked extensively in the Middle East - he married a Muslim woman in 2000 - and has been deputy ambassador to Afghanistan.

No worries. I'm sure that he's usually able to keep his uncontrollable anti-Semitism separate from his extensive diplomatic work.

Laxton is - proverbially and literally - the guy who's in the room when decisions get made. And he is an out-and-out genocidal anti-Jewish fanatic. How many reports has he written saying that it would be in Britain's national interest to distance itself from Israel? How many times has he reported that the Arab Street can be mollified with only a little more appeasement? How many meetings has he swayed into concluding that Palestinian violence is Israel's fault? But at least they've still got him working - look what happened last time some genocidal British tool didn't get promoted.

Of course the international hostility toward the Jewish State is pathological. Even taking into account the UN's anti-Israel fantasies and outright hallucinations - there's no way that Israel is that much worse than the Palestinians. Even human rights organizations - on those rare occasions when they deign to take questions - acknowledge that of course Hamas commits blatant war crimes. Even if you believe the most vicious anti-Israel smears and embrace the most absurd tales of idyllic Palestinian life - the Israelis aren't such warmongers and the Palestinians aren't such victims that one-third of all UN resolutions should be turned over to condemning Israel. The ICC shouldn't be embarrassing itself looking for pretexts to try Israeli commanders for war crimes. Rational, level-headed analysis just doesn't work that way.

There's something else going on. There's something else that causes esteemed scholars like Mearsheimer to make undergrad methodological errors and to become physically agitated whenever Israel is mentioned. There's something else that causes feminist and gay rights activists to screech hysterically in defense of people who subjugate women and murder gays. Rational, levelheaded analysis just doesn't look that way.

In any case - kind of puts Britain's early efforts to impose a Cast Lead ceasefire into perspective, huh?

References and previously after the jump...